The Netherlands seems to have its fair share of smart rather than daft ducks at the moment.

Take the mother duck in Beuningen who for the third year in a row has nested in the garden of Caroline Verhees’ terraced home.

When the ducklings are big enough to swim, she taps on the garden door and then leads her brood through the house and into the pond at the other side of the road.

‘I help them cross the road so they don’t get squashed,’ Verhees says.

In Amersfoort, meanwhile, a German shepherd dog named Wolf has adopted four orphan chicks who were abandoned by their mother.

‘It’s jolly cold outside so I brought them in,’ Josje Keunen told the AD. ‘I was worried about the dog, but right from the start he began ‘fathering’ them. He licks them and cuddles them and wants them with him all the time.’

As soon as the ducklings are big enough to cope on their own, Keunen says she will take them to a nearby duck pond. ‘But until then, they can stay close to daddy Wolf,’ she says.